Dale Earnhardt Jr. has long felt great affection for Talladega -- and vice versa

TALLADEGA, Alabama -- The Talladega garage wasn't very elaborate in those primitive days, not much more than a metal roof over an oil-stained concrete slab.

Young Dale Earnhardt Jr. with his father (Photo courtesy of JR Motorsports)

But what a playground for a youngster with a curiosity, entrepreneurial spirit and a free pass.

For instance, a youngster like Dale Earnhardt Jr, who grew up to become a five-time winner at the speedway, which hosts the Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500 this Sunday (1 p.m).

"I used to love to go around the garage while the race was going on 'cause it was a ghost town," Earnhardt said. "You would just be amazed at the things you would find lying around by the teams -- sparkplugs, parts, things that they'd fabricated or thrown off the car, taken off the car.

"Maybe a couple cars had had an accident, had come through there, they cut the stuff off the cars, load the cars up, go home, leave the debris, sheet metal laying there. Just kind of sifting through all that stuff while the race was happening on the racetrack was something we used to do quite a bit as kids at Talladega," he continued.

A beneficiary of Junior's scavenging was Jimmy Means, the veteran driver from Huntsville.

"When he was young, he always pulled for me. I don't know why," Means said.

"Me and Brad (Means's son) would go around, there would be dozens of sparkplugs still in the box laying around on the floor," Earnhardt continued. "We would get all those sparkplugs. There would be cans of glass cleaner, brake fluid. If it was half-full, we'd put it in a box. We would take it over to Jimmy's hauler."

As an adult, Earnhardt has scoured Talladega for fun, something in more abundance than mangled metal and discarded parts.

"Truth be known, me and my crew, on Fridays and Saturdays after practice will incognito-style get in a rental car and ride through the infield and check out some of the crazy stuff going on in there," Junior confessed several years ago.

That Earnhardt has embraced Talladega as a place with a heart and soul to it has encouraged even more devotion from fans.

"Certainly Dale Junior recognizes and embraces the fan support he gets in the state of Alabama, almost to the point it feels like home even though he's never lived there," said Mike Davis, an Earnhardt friend and the director of communications at JR Motorsports.

"I think the mutual respect goes beyond his five wins there. Truthfully I think he sees a lot of himself in the Talladega race fan -- someone who knows the history of the sport, loves the track, and puts in an honest day's work. Because of that he seems to always rise to the occasion at Talladega," he continued.

The history of Talladega is full of Earnhardt lore. Dale Earnhardt Sr. won 10 Sprint Cup races here, including the last of his 76 career victories, on Oct. 15, 2000. Between father and son, there are actually 20 victories. Each won a Nationwide Series event and the old man picked off three IROC wins here.

"I think (Junior) comes by it naturally, almost by instinct," said Ricky Craven, the former racer and now ESPN analyst. "You think about the magic that his dad had on restrictor plate tracks, he inherited that to some degree."

Alas, there is this asterisk: Junior's last Talladega victory was Oct. 3, 2004, ending a string of five wins in seven 'Dega starts.

Even if it seems an eternity since then, seldom has Junior not been a contender here.

"It's fun to watch," Davis said. "He might not win every time, but you can bet every dollar in your pocket he'll race his car to the ragged edge. I can't think of many times in which Junior raced at Talladega and didn't let it all hang out."

That's rewarded him with victories. More than that, it's rewarded him with devotion from a fan base for which the feeling is mutual and the ground is common.